I feel you Jerry. Lows in mid-30's is fine for March, but its almost Memorial Day for cripes sake!

The cabbage are definitely enjoying the weather, but everything else is itching to be planted. I planted carrot seeds yesterday. And maybe I should plant more lettuce and forget about the peppers and tomatoes this year. It will probably warm up, but will we have enough season left by the time it does?

Those are some good lookin' peppers! This will definitely be one of those years where the "don't plant until after Memorial Day" motto will be accurate. I am worried about my iris buds failing and I've been out covering peonies and miscellaneous potted plants that I already did. On the bright side, all this moisture is going to be great for grass and garden!

This is the weekend I usually start planting out warm season stuff (after checking the 10 day forecast) so waiting another week really isn't much difference. Seems the warm season stuff doesn't really take off anyways until it is usually at least around 80F most days. That said I will probably get a few transplants out starting Wednesday evening.

At least, they are very good looking plants!

I'm having some of the same problems. Highs in the mid-80's and I burned things setting them out for an hour to water and dry off. This was immediately after some tender amaranth froze under plastic film with no heat source. There were several burned tomato leaves under there ... Oops!

I will have the greenhouse furnace on tonight mostly because it is so darn windy and there just isn't enough mass in there to hold warmth above whatever the outdoor temperature is! Some peppers are in the carport but I'm now wondering how I though that structure was suitable if the WS is a tiny bit off and it drops into the 30's with all this wind. The plants won't like it!

Steve

Based upon the current 14-day forecast, I plan to plant pre-sprouted bean seeds on 5/28 and probably put out cuke and squash starts the same day. If the soil warms back to 60 degrees, I'll put out the peppers around 5/29 or 5/30. If not, it will be 6/4 or later. My daughter is getting married and I'm out 5/31 to 6/3.

Peppers get stunted permanently if they get too cold while the other plants will just slow down and recover. Not sure how how happy the peppers would be with another 2 weeks in the pots.

We held off on the younger veggies but did put Jerry's tomatoes out because they were so big. Will attempt to cover them for tonight. Having a bit of sleet here....

Jerry (Broomfield CO 5) said:

"Peppers get stunted permanently if they get too cold..."

I bet that is true. And, I would also bet that I have never seen a pepper live up to its true potential in my garden. They are a source of frequent disappointment.

The smallest hot pepper varieties like Thai Hot do the best at ripening. Maybe there are natural dwarfs in the sweet pepper group that would tolerate my garden conditions better. Hmmm Dwarf vining squash haven't proven themselves as being reliable, however ...

Steve

Aw, those poor beautiful peppers!

We got about 3 inches of heavy wet snow last night and now a freeze warning for tomorrow morning. I brought in a ton of pots and covered up a lotta stuff in the ground on a hunch that the predicted "rain" was going to change with the temps -- and am sure glad I did!

From now on, now matter what the forecast says, I refuse to plant out ANY warm-loving plants until after the first week of June.

That way, it'll be in prime condition to be walloped by hail. ;)

Sounds like a great plan, Laura! :)

I opened up my WOWs over a week ago based on a 14-day forecast with nothing lower than 45 degrees. Fortunately, on Monday I tossed a towel on top of each. I think that they will be Ok.

My main worry now is about frost/freeze damage to my grape vines that had started leafing out.

We covered Jerry's tomatoes with a tarp, put 3 buckets over the new roses and just let the rest fight it out with the snow. Seemed like 2-3 inches of heavy wet snow.

Jerry, the zucchini you gave me is doing beautifully. Very tempted to put them in this weekend...

I planted out Mother's Day weekend. Peppers, tomatillos, tomatoes, tons of salvia and basil. Everyone pulled thorough it seems, but I wish I had a little more patience instead of putting myself through this every year.

It all feels very scammy - "Wait until Mother's Day to plant!" all the garden centers say, knowing you'll probably be back to drop another $300 to replace all the dead stuff a week down the road.

The only plants I am worried about losing are cucumbers. Even covered, they look quite sad. And the apricots.....first crop in five years.....they're cherry sized already but may fall off the tree once the sun returns, as they have done in previous years after a surprise late May freeze. But I hope not because I'd like to make some apricot jam this year.

We have a ton of Prunus americana growing here, I was really hoping for plums this year, but I wont be holding my breath. With these late freezes, it really wrecks the forage and mast production of wild fruit and nut trees. I would expect to see an increase in human-bear conflicts this year. The last time we had a mother's day snow storm they were finding bears searching for food as far down the mountain as DU and this year the freeze was a whole 10 days later than that yet.

My tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and tomatillos still have not even seen the outdoors yet. Was planning on hardening off the tomatoes this week, but instead I was outside covering my emergent potato leaves. They may be touted as a "cool season" crop, but I'd rather not have all the above ground growth be blackened by frost as has happened to me in the past.

I always wait until Mother's Day just to start checking the 10-day forecast to see if I can think about hardening off my warm season stuff. I would never use that as my bench mark for a solid plant out date. I think the earliest I have written down for planting tomatoes is May 19th with it usually being about a week later than that. Even the "warm up" this weekend/next week isn't what I would consider "warm." 60's for highs and 40's for lows... That's about as good as we can really hope for I think. I will probably start bringing them outside this week. I started the squash, melons, and cucumbers in cups indoors. I had planned on direct seeding them, but if the weather doesn't turn around in a hurry (and it doesn't appear as it will) I'll be waiting until July before they even sprout. The summer squash and cuke's I probably could have direct seeded in a couple-few weeks and been fine, but since I was doing it I figured I'd just do them all.

All that being said, oddly enough I had a couple volunteer beans from gardens past pop up this week...

I had my plants hardened off to about a half day before this cold spell returned. I put the plants in the unheated garage overnights, but when the snow and 30 degree night temps came back I brought everything back in the house. The weather service wasn't kidding when they said we'd have a cold, wet spring!

Looking at Sunday, it'll be 79 degrees and 45 overnight here, but then we cool down again to 39 Tuesday night. I honestly don't know what to do, I know I should wait for the night time temps to hit 50 before planting. I guess I could set up a few walls of water this weekend and plant out a few tomatoes, just to free up some space in the kitchen jungle!

I appreciate the moisture, but this is frustrating. I guess the state is 99.9% out of drought now.

Laura, yes, let's keep the plants in prime condition for hail! ;o)

Zach -- I agree; 50F degree nights just aren't a regular thing here until later on. Most years my tomatoes pout and look depressed until nearly July.

Welp, I've thrown a couple of flats of zinnia seedlings that I started indoors to the wolves. They're under a tent of thin frost cloth to shade them and divert wind off them by day, and a thicker layer of frost cloth gets pulled over them to keep 'em warm at night. Will plant them in the flower beds in a couple of weeks (hopefully). So far, so good. I was really eyeing the weather report today, though! They were calling for 3 inch hail initially. Fun, fun.

I tell myself that the pouty tomatoes are busy growing roots. Maybe it's true, or maybe they are just protesting me planting them in a geographic location that simply does not want them to be here.

No hail so far, barely even rain. But we have had some pretty nasty looking clouds and just a few miles east of us has been getting hammered with rain and hail. I have found the the pile of tomato cages I was trying to give away make great supports for low tunnels when you unroll them into half circles. I plan on covering them with hardware cloth.

I'm waiting until after Wednesday night them its in the ground for the tomatoes and tomatillos. I simply cannot keep them in their little pots and moving them inside and outside anymore. Eggplants and peppers will go into the greenhouse this week to start hardening off.

Ours all went in yesterday. Buckets, storage tubs, extra trash cans and tarps are all on standby.

Hi all, new here. My remaining tomatoes were planted yesterday as well, and some peppers as I too am tired of carting plants in and out everyday. My cukes are still hardening off but they'll be next. The ground temperature was almost 60 degrees yesterday morning so warm enough I hope. Not going to worry about covering anything at this point, either they make it or not. Well, except basil, it's in a pot and will stay in the shed for the next day or two. Good luck to those that took the plunge!

Welcome, Nicole! :) :)

Woke up at 5am this morning to the sound of rain smacking against the solar panels. It was raining HARD! Lasted for over three hours.

Hope everyone's plants did OK with this last system. It sounds like metro Denver got slammed with hail overnight, as well as a few other locations. Thankfully my "crazy neighbor" ** precaution of covering everything with hardware cloth and laundry baskets was all for nothing. Whew!!

(That being said, it's starting to warm up slightly as the cloud cover just broke. I'm thinking I'll leave the hail protection up for the rest of the day. Because, Colorado. )

** I'm certain I've attained "crazy neighbor" status over the years, as people on my suburban street are always watching me do odd garden/wildlife-related things in my yard.

We got hammered with hail last night. Wasn't predicted so nothing was covered. It started at 4:18 a.m. and seem to go on forever. I didn't go out till about 9 this morning to get pictures so stuff was already melting but there were several piles about 9 inches deep where it overflowed the gutters.

This is the second time the trees were deleafed by hail. So no shade for us any time soon.

Join the club, MMMM12

We were hit at 4:14. The grape vines, just recovering somewhat from the freeze, got mostly defoliated. My tomato plants did not get totally destroyed even though the WOWs were open on top because the hail was coming mostly from the side.

Sungold tomato that had grown out the top. bottom leaves look OK, top leaves knocked off.

Lettuce has seen snow, snow, hail snow, hail:

This hosta took it hard

Link to my garden cam at 4:43AM

https://ring.com/share/6696026680757268938

Meanwhile, my pepper, squash and cuke starts are getting rootbound waiting for spring.

Sorry to see the hail. I'm going to finally start the big plant out this week.

Jerry, sounds like it was moving west to east. Our trees and the zucchini took it the worst because of the larger leaves. The hail was smaller so not as damaging as the last storm. We had a little more hail today but everything was covered for it.

Interesting that you guys got it around 4:15 -- I'm not too far from either of you, and I woke up to the sound of it at exactly 4:00, and went running outside in bare feet and PJs to bring in my four trays of starts. Oh, Colorado!

Ouch, sorry for those that got hit already, fingers crossed the hail isn't as bad as it was last year. I'm in Erie and think we just got rain and thunder, no hail this morning when I got up.

Thanks Laura, I lived in Fort Collins a dozen years or so and miss it dearly.

oladon,

I am so impressed that you went out to grab your plants in the middle of that.

So far I have been spared the little ice pellets falling from the sky, but we're still getting frequent freezes at night. The closest forecast location for us is Milliken, which was predicted to be 38-40º last night. I had ice on my car when I left for work this morning.

How could I not?! I've been investing in those little guys for months now! :P

Well, the answer to the question of whether or not MY peppers are ever going into the ground: Nope. I discovered yesterday that I have aminopyralid contamination in my garden beds, so I won't be able to plant ANY legumes or nightshades in those beds for several years.

I used compost that the guy who lived here previously had left behind when he moved. My guess is he used sheep and probably cow manure from animals that were grazing on pastures he had treated with Milestone to kill thistles. Being as he was once my supervisor at the Arsenal, in charge of all things herbicide and weed related, AND he grew vegetables for market, I wouldn't have guessed he would have ever done something like that. Surely he knew how persistent these herbicides are? It explains why so few of my peas ever germinated and the ones that did died almost immediately and my potato leaves all look like fiddlehead ferns. There is no brassica's listed on the label for weeds controlled by milestone and my cabbage and broccoli all look fine. Onions are not a broadleaf (dicot) plant so they are similarly unaffected. I guess I'm lucky that we've had such a cold season thus far as I haven't planted anything else. But it sure is frustrating to think of all the hours of hard work I put in to making that garden and now it's been rendered completely unusuable.

Aw, that's a real bummer, zach!! Totally unfair. How did you figure out the contamination? Soil testing, or....?

Perhaps container gardening could work in the meantime(?) Hang in there...

My zinnias are still under light wraps. Here's a pic from yesterday:

The Ferry Morse "Thumbelina" seeds had a rather poor germination rate, but all the others (Ferry Morse "Lilliput"', Burpee "State Fair Mix" and "Forecast", Seeds of Change "Cut and Come Again" ) are doing great. I just planted some more Thumbelinas, this time from Botanical Interests, as I usually use this seed company but the places I buy 'em from were clean out of zinnias earlier.

I didn't direct sow them because all the birds in my yard just LOVE fresh garden seeds. Ha. Ha.

So as not to hijack this thread, Laura, I'll start a new one on this disastrous adventure I'm on...

Laura, it's too late for this year, but if you like Zinnias you might want to check out the ones Fedco carries. Most of their varieties are $2 or less a pack, but more importantly, they're an "anti-GMO" company so, in my opinion, they fall into the Good Guys category and deserve all the support they can get. They're one of the three companies I buy virtually all my seed from now! If you're interested in checking them out, here's a link:

Skybird

https://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/flower-seeds

I got nearly everything planted out yesterday and today. It all got hailed on this afternoon, small hail and lots of rain, but doesn't look like much damage, a few torn leaves on a couple of eggplants. It could have been worse.

Zach, I'm so sorry about your garden soil, that's awful. Let's hope for a better year going forward!

Barb

After 3 days of planting out and other associated garden work almost everything is planted out. A few leftover basil and a few pepper runts that may get composted and a handful of tomatoes we will pot up and find a sunny place under a tree (hopefully out of hail). Still a few smaller empty spots to squeeze some things in and some beds are getting cleared out of cool season greens. Better late than never.

Very late, but almost everything is planted in the ground. Pepper pots haven't been done yet, but I'm happy most of the in-ground stuff has been completed.

Jerry, I love your potting up soil mixture. Would you care to share it with us?

Hi tomatoz1,

Just promise not to laugh! If you got plants in the 3.5x3.5x5" posts (or smaller). that is just the Jiffy Seed Starter (from HD) 80% and 20% fine vermiculite.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Sta-Green-8-Quart-Organic-Vermiculite/50369772

I get the mix a little wet and microwave on high for 8 minutes to get rid of any critters.

I top off with 1/8" of chick grit to defeat mold and fungi.

If you got a tomato plant in the big 5-6" pots, that is soil I scooped out my raised bed.

I just got back in town today and will be planting like crazy and will update in a day or two.

Well, those peppers and many squash, cukes, melons, herbs and others looked good. Then, round 3 of hail happened this afternoon.

Oh, no, Jerry!!! :( :(

Hopefully some made it through?

We got it also. First thing I said to my husband was save the zucchini! They are still alive but were badly shredded in the overnight hail when we didn't get any protection down.

I’m so sorry for the destruction of our gardens by the hail. Luckily my gardens are quite late being planted mostly by seed, so not much damage yet.

So sad to see this.

We've had hail 3 times in the last 10 days. Nothing too bad yet. I have some areas protected with framed hardware cloth or hail netting attached to hoops.

Damage assessed. Pretty bad.

Here are some before pics,

A pepper and Crnkovich tomato

Red Currant tomato

Yellow Zuke< MMM2, look at the female flower already. Didn't check if it survived. Hail came from northeast and this is 4' from west side of house, so not so much damage.

After Pictures:

Red Currant

Peppers

A large blue hosta that was looking great 2 days ago

Japanese Long cuke

This iris must have been hit by a big one.

Pretty bad, but not as bad as Zach's soil issue. Some of these will still produce this year.

That's a bummer Jerry. It always looks so bad right after. Hopefully some things recover. If you need any more tomatoes we have about 10 of them that we potted up recently.

Very generous gjcore. I did plant new seeds for the 30% of my bean plants that were totally destroyed. The rest I will leave to nature. We head out of town Friday, so late for any transplants for us.

Disappointing, but I'm not totally bummed. I tried a bunch of new things this season and learned a lot.

Dang!

We had quite a downpour of rain the other day.

I thought of Colorado ... updrafts/downdrafts, ups/downs ... I live in a valley and after 50 years, I can see how the mountains on either side draw the clouds and storms. I believe that it was a Jack London book I read as a child: his Native guide was saying that the sky reflects the terrain below it. Wilderness ... or not quite, with all the changes that we are making ... and making ... and making. To be on the side of life as best we can and trying to help sustain life.

Steve

I'm glad to see you're still "around here," Steve! You suddenly went from Very Active to GONE, and I was wondering if you were ok! Figured you were just "busy," with spring and all (tho when I check your weather up thataway, it sure doesn't look very much like SPRING!) so was waiting to do a post saying: Digit! Where are you! Sounds like, except maybe for the weather, all's well with you! Hope you get some Good Gardening Weather soon!

Skybird

My tomatoes finally went in the ground on Saturday, and my eggplants on Monday! They were looking really terrible in the pots--I had given them a couple soap baths after I got home and I think I maybe had too much soap in the "bath," and with the kinda cold weather they were staying too wet much of the time, and with the potential for hail I wanted to keep them in the pots so I could carry them up onto my covered deck when necessary! I finally "rinsed them off" to get any "extra" soap off of them late last week, but that got them totally saturated again--not great! So on SA I decided they went in the ground and I'd just keep my fingers crossed! It worked! The tomatoes are still quite small--look even smaller than when in the pots since they get buried DEEP, but they're looking "good," and are definitely "gonna take!" An HOUR after I got them in I got HAIL! Pretty small and didn't last long! No damage--except to some of my hosta! SU was cold so I waited with the eggplants, which were also looking pretty pathetic! Since they went in the ground on M-- just in a couple days!--they're looking better already! I'm encouraged, and hoping for a pretty good tomato and eggplant year! Still have a few paprika peppers and some basils that I need to find space to "stick in" somewhere!

Let the games begin--for all of us! And, a request to Whatever Gods May Be, for no more HAIL!

Skybird